An old hippie friend gave me his diary from age 8 - 1953 - age 20-1965. its really good he's like the origional Hippie even from childhood. rated for later chapters. sex drugs language and what not. please read.

If god himself were to drop down out of the sky and lend a hand it wouldn't
have been a better day for Preston Lucious Culver. He stood up to his chin
in tangled underbrush, thorns scratching angry messages in his pale skin.
This was his day and he would rejoice until the end of it.

Squeezing himself into a thicket surrounded by the wildest brush the free
world had yet to see he smiled inwardly and lay down pressing his ear to
the ground .Feeling the eternal heart beat of the earth. This is what it
was all about. This oneness of self and environment. He blended into the
scenery like he belonged there, some pale skinned indian with sun-bleached
blond hair and eyes bluer than the sky on a crisp spring morning.

This was the first day of summer and Preston would be damned if he spent it
cooped up in a cottage solving arithmetic problems as if the world depended
on it. Sure he was a smart kid working figures up there with the best of
them but this was no time for book work when the world was just settling in
for a long haul. Stocking up on essentials for the next-go-round. And he
was right out there watching it. Not in the way his parents did but in the
way an eight year old with a bow and quiver full of arrows he'd fletched
himself slung across his shoulders would watch. Following tracks looking
for signs of bear and wolf and deer. Just stalking through the underbrush
like Hiawatha out for a hunt, bringing back meat enough for the whole camp.

Preston leaned back against the rough bark of a towering ponderosa and
smiled up at a gray backed squirrel peering down at him through the
branches. This was the life, laid back beneath the canopy wrapped in a cool
layer of freedom beneath a sky so deep and blue he felt as if he could just
fall right into it. Yes this was it, the Montana Rockies, wild untamed. His
domain. An eight year old with bow and arrows and a hunting knife strapped
to his right shin living off the land enjoying the freedoms of the untamed
wilderness. The original Buffalo Bill. That was his hero Buffalo bill, Wild
Bill Hickok and all the other gun slinging mountain men.

Of course he couldn't have a gun no. Guns were cruel, vile dangerous,
unfair. His parents trekked the wild Montana mountains with nothing but a
35 millimeter camera and unlimited rolls of film. That's the only shot they
ever took. Down the barrel of a fancy video recorder equipped with a
microphone so every snarl of wolf or bear or wolverine could be heard. Shot
by shot grizzlies elk moose wolves black bears brown bears every creature
that ever ran walked crawled flew scampered or swam .Captured on film and
mailed off to some magazine company somewhere in the north east and
magically a check would appear at the counter of Craig and Bronns Outpost
down in Libby. Along with a box of more film , replacement lens blank shots
and the occasional letter of commission " We need more bear" " Timber wolf"
"Moose". Yup that's how life went when you were descendant from great ness.
Three generations of rough necked old gold diggers ,crooners and trappers
raised at the foothills of the great Rockies.

The sun was beating a steady rhythm down through the trees by the time
Preston dragged him self up out of the bramble and made his way back along
a game trail that lead practically to his back door. There was no one home
.Not this time of day, now with this kind of beautiful weather .Perfect for
she bears and last years cubs to be out by the lake fattening up for
winter. Perfect for white tailed deer and bull moose to begin strutting
around with the first knobs of velvet sprouting from tiny heads on thick
necks. Perfect for any boy just growing up in the wilds to be out enjoying
the fruits of life. But first, he had to put an entry in his journal about
the mornings events. 'Just so as we can know what you've been up to son.'
his father Preston senior would say cleaning the dirt from his well worn
face by the sink late at night.

He quickly scratched a note or two about the morning, breakfast, chores ,
book work. Then he got into the important things. The animals he saw, the
new trail he found the snare he set across a rabbit den where a whole mess
of little blond haired hoppers peered at him wide eyed as he studied them.
Then where he was headed now, only a few quick sentences but enough to
gray the hair of any city mother who worried about such trivial things. He
left the journal on the breakfast table restocked his knapsack and canteen
being careful to insert the stopper carefully this time lest it all spill
out again. Then slung his quiver of arrows across his chest snatched up his
bow an a stout fishing pole and angled out through the east door heading
down towards Wolf Creek.

At first look Wolf Creek with its steady trickling current was no bog a
deal but when Preston threw out a weighted hook and braced himself against
a rock the whole world would have gasped at the specimen he dragged up out
of the water. Now under any other circumstance nothing this size could
possibly inhabit the little streams and backwaters of this valley but when
you look at the tribute this creek fed into it was more than
understandable. Even from this distance of a couple dozen miles the mighty
Kootenai Falls bellowed pulling savagely at every drop of water in a fifty
mile radius and hurtling it down a three hundred feet decline in less that
three hundred yards. This prize here, this sneak of a trout had slunk his
way in from some distant rivulet. Bypassing the falls, made its way up here
only to land thrashing on the banks of a trickle down stream and gutted by
a little boy with a knife almost as long as his forearm. This was the life.

Struggling under the weight of his prize Preston staggered up the grade and
through the pine forest picking up an old deer trail a few yards off the
creek path. He would follow this trail until it met up with another and
follow that one a few paces uphill until he came out on a bluff overlooking
Wolf Creek . Below him the water sparkled like an emerald catching and
holding the light of early afternoon. Before him , right at his feet was a
plethora of berry patches some just ripening to a sweet juicy burst. Others
awaiting the first kiss of fall before yielding its sweetness to any tongue
be it man or bird or beast. Dropping his load Preston rearranged his
supplies unstrapped his knapsack and before the sun could drop down behind
the forest line he had it stuffed full of sweet black and red berries , a
fine accompaniment to the fish if he said so himself.

He got back home in time to feed the animals. You know the usual farm crew.
Three sows and a bull, a pen full of clucking hens and of course what no
farm is complete with out an old cud chewing cow and a stumpy goat with
teats straining against its load of milk. He placed the fish, already
gutted and scaled in a pan of salted water in the kitchen dumped the
berries in a bowl and cleaned himself up. He was milking the goat when his
parents dropped down out of the mountains following a worn trail over the
hillside.

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